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zombie-bait · 4 months

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Full Moon

Ok so I don’t normally post about Helluva Boss but the newest episode touched on an interesting concept I haven’t necessarily seen represented in media. Back when I was on Twitter (derogatory) a few years ago there was this now deleted viral thread where someone discussed how their struggles with mental health affected their relationship with their partner and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

This is such a good, short example of how anxiety and depression can play tricks on you. It becomes so easy to envision yourself as a nuisance, a constant burden to those closest to you because they cannot possibly genuinely enjoy your company, right? But in doing so you create this arbitrarily cruel version of the people you love, people who would otherwise never behave like this outside of your own mind.

It's mean. Because your mind wants to be mean to you under these circumstances. It wants to put everyone else's emotions and desires above yours, both in worthiness and validity. And that starts bleeding into your understanding of other people, especially those you care about.

Now. Helluva Boss.

"Can I get a fucking MINUTE to think after everything you put me through you pompous rich ASSHOLE? Treat me like one of your little butler imps, you can’t just dismiss me like that! I mean, you royal fucks think you can do this every time, like you can just play with our feelings because we’re smaller and not as important. Well I’m not letting you, BITCH! Let’s go!" - Blitz

I find it really interesting how Helluva Boss decided to approach this conflict between Stolas and Blitz. Obviously, the difference in power matters. It's the underlying tension of their entire relationship and their lives. Stolas is burdened by the mountain of expectations thrust upon him from a very young age while Blitz is constantly reminded that he can NEVER be part of that world, that he is "smaller and not as important" not just in Hell's hierarchy but in his own life and family. Stolas very literally has power over Blitz (through the grimoire, the arrangement, his position in society) and Blitz uses their relationship as an excuse to reverse those roles. But that power dynamic, in one form or another, never truly goes away. And for Blitz, it's a lot easier to paint Stolas as this manipulative symbol of power and himself as nothing more than Stolas' plaything. It's easier to be angry than to be vulnerable and accept that someone might care about him.

"Dismiss" is the keyword in that quote. All that Blitz has been able to process is that Stolas has decided to end the relationship that they have. He feels ls like a choice has been taken away from him so he lashes out because he's not ready to emotionally tackle what the rest of Stolas' offer might entail. If Stolas hates him, just wants to play with him, then he is justified in his anger, his self-destruction, his isolation. If the world is mean, you're "allowed" to be mean back.

But

In that moment he forgets that Stolas is someone he actually cares about. Someone he's known for way too long and clearly wants to keep in his life, no matter how reluctant he can be to admit it. Someone who is not innately cruel or manipulative but sad and desperate for connections in a lot of the same ways that Blitz is. And Blitz immediately sees that he's miscalculated something.

Somewhere along the way the fictional version of Stolas that he's allowed himself to be mad at and the real one that he's not ready to admit he cares about have merged into something real that he has actual power over. Stolas can get hurt and Blitz can be the one who does it. He has once again allowed his greatest fears (which Stolas so frequently symbolizes) to co-opt his loved ones, to give him an "out" even though he didn't actually want one in the first place.

I'm definitely not the first person to say this but I think this is an example of the miscommunication trope done right. Their individual struggles are what cause them to be unable to connect during this conversation or to even have a proper conversation in the first place. There is no convenient misunderstanding or third party fabricating this rift. Both of them have preconceived ideas of what the other one is thinking but those ideas are flawed and rooted in self-hatred. They also both shutdown in their unique ways when the conversation starts heading in the direction they'd feared it would.

Blitz and Stolas work because they're both fucked up in similar ways, because they want similar things. That's the same reason why they're uniquely designed to hurt one another. A fear of rejection and a yearning for happiness. To borrow a quote that has been used by literally everyone from Spiderman to Evangelical preachers, "hurt people hurt people."

anyway, I really liked this episode.

(twitter thread screenshots sourced from this reddit post)

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starry-bi-sky · 6 months

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Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well:

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents.

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill.

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.)

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one.

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself.

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.)

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.)

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe.

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal.

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking.

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter.

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind.

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous.

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own.

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t.

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward.

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”)

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell.

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his.

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it.

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now.

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own.

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother.

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten.

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands.

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely.

It is a fast dream.

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods.

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him.

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal.

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train.

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.)

—---

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again.

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person.

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.)

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird.

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is.

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off.

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom.

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.)

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

-----------------

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #danyal al ghul au #amnesiac danyal al ghul au #songs in order of the album: the hartebeest / harpy hare / and the hound / neath the grove is a heart #musician danny has my heart and soul #yes this danyal IS an alternative danny from the other au. an au where things were a little better :) but still sucks #implied good mom talia al ghul #danyal is a momma's boy send tweet #dpxdc ficlet #dpxdc prompts #dp x dc au #dp x dc fanfic #danyal is sTILL five years older than damian in this au #no beta no edits we die like danny fenton #poc danny fentons #i didnt know where to end this :(( i was gonna go on but i blanked. i thought about going into his relationships with his rogues and so on.#but that felt too much like trying to just increase the word count rather than actually writing?? if that makes sense #ugh im gonna have forgotten to include things and im gonna be kicking myself later #morally ambiguous danny whoo! we love to see it #since this was just for fun it doesnt really go into it all that much other than like. it happens. and that danny realizes he's dangerous #phantom in a hazmat suit? nah phantom looking like an assassin >:].#danyal al ghul with damian and his mom: 🥰🌸✨#danyal al ghul with everyone else: 👹🔪#am i heavily implying that clockwork had smth to do with Danyal’s amnesia and appearance by the cabin? 👀 maybe #not enough danyal al ghul aus where him being an assassin actually. has some kind of affect on him

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re-colligere · 18 days

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If I have to be totally honest they've been rotating in my mind for QUITE a bit. I'm only now truly exploring their potential. Because you know what. They kinda cute as well.

#inside out #inside out 2 #pixar inside out #inside out disgust #inside out embarrassment #disgust #embarrassment #disgust x embarrassment #now what the HELL is their ship name.#im just pairing disgust with everyone #not my fault she's so fun to think about in tandem with everyone. i love her so much #gene art #thing about them is like. disgust is the outward critic while emby's inward #they get a bit hmmmm when disgust gets like. a bit too critical of emby #i have an oc where i decided these two would be her main emotions and SHE'S been so fun to write for. so there's definitely something

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ra-archives · 9 months

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Yes Yes, I see your Mermaid Legend this and Merman Legend that, however,

Might I offer up some Siren Legend

#THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES #So much room for siren song fuckery in difficult situations. Like it'd be so fun #Think of legend getting too into it during a transformation and making the chain nervous when he steps a bit to close to 'monster'#THINK OF WIND #The sailor and the siren are bound to have beef with eachother #I think I have a new fic to go write #art #my art #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu legend #mer legend #Every time I think of Siren Legend 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' starts looping in my head on repeat help #Also fun fact: Sirens were originally portrayed with bird like features and were later adapted to have the typical mermaid features :D

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ivyithink · 2 months

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okay, but armand getting to see baby!vamp lestat? still so excited about how different the world is to a vampire?? teaching him stuff and witnessing the joy that brings???

#my art #interview with the vampire #iwtv #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #lestat de lioncourt #the vampire armand #armandstat #lesmand #iwtv art #iwtv fanart #to everyone saying that armand is writing his personal little fanfic about his relationship with lestat… you might be right BUT #but but but! counterpoint: let him cook.#I’m having too much fun with it all so I personally think he should be encouraged!#a little creative writing haven’t ever hurt nobody c’mon!#also this whole thing?#partially inspired by that line in tvl where lestat says he would stop and stare at candles and tree branches after being turned #bro just mesmerised by the beauty of the universe! let him be!

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sorunort · 2 months

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i said in another post i was rping loop in a multifandom rp group and i'm having a lot of fun! so much fun that i made a giant doodle sheet of loop's glitch....that i haven't even gotten to rp yet but am so excited to im getting carried away. whoops

(in the context of the group, think of glitching like in spiderverse, they don't belong in this new world/dimension so their existence rejects it. we can do whatever we want for glitches so i just made loop's that they get their humanity back. yknow. for misery whenever they unglitch and go back to being a star [thumbs up])

i think my favorite here might just be the Go there Go Into the Dark catcrumb edit lmao

#isat spoilers #in stars and time #loop isat #isat loop #isat siffrin #siffrin isat #loops agonies are so much fun to write when siffrins already in the group and like #imagine losing your humanity and guiding another version of you through time loops all while having VERY complicated feelings on him #AND JUST AS YOU DISAPPEAR ON A GOOD NOTE YOU GET ISEKAI'D AND APPARENTLY STARDUST HAS ALREADY BEEN HERE FOR 6 MONTHS #AND HE SAYS THERES NO WAY HOME ON PURPOSE AND YOU JUST GOTTA TWIDDLE YOUR THUMBS they are!!! agonized!!!#blessing and curse that siffrin was already there bc theyre both like 'i kinda hate it here BUT im relieved and upset youre here too'#'because now im not alone but damn i dont want you to hate it here too!'#uuuuuuuugHHHHHH siffrin and loop....their mutual illnesses..... IM ill......

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meownotgood · 2 months

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"I will never read x reader it's just weird and they're always badly written" OKAY WELL NOT ME!!! GIVE ME ALL THE X READERS!!!!!! ME AND ALL MY FAVES ARE KISSING FOREVER

#ok but really if you don't like x reader it's ok #but to say they're poorly written #is just not true lol #there's so many x reader fics that are made by extremely talented writers #I have read soooo many amazing ones #I keep seeing videos on tt shitting on x reader #and I'm just like #ok...... more for meeee....#I think x reader fics just get too much unnecessary hate in general #and although they can definitely be for fun and it's amazing to write something and just have fun with ur faves #they can also have passion put into them #and they're just as valid as ship fics

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kaznejis · 4 months

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Your ivy grows, and now I'm covered in you- Erik Lehnsherr x Reader (Masterlist)

Professor Erik Lehnsherr was an enigma, it was undeniable to anyone who crossed his path. He emanated a magnificent presence; intelligence, authority, power. But, he was also kind, when he wanted to be. Reverent smiles when a student offered an insightful point during one of his seminars, a chuckle when a hint of true personality slipped out during their answer, a smirk when the debate prose grew heated.

A true beacon of trust, solemn kindness to all of his students; but, sometimes, in the darkest depths of the night, tucked safely into the comforts of your duvet- you felt that part of him reserved an extra sense of kindness for you.

A collection of affiliated, but standalone, oneshots

I- Your opal eyes are all I wish to see

II- Tarnished, but so grand

III- (TBC)

#erik lehnsherr #erik lehnsherr x reader #having WAYYYY too much fun writing this series- so excited to post more!#the oneshot format definitely works for me because theres sooo much less stress and i can kind of just..write what i want? loveee #part 2 is coming very soon

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scificrows · 1 year

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Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot #𓄿 #hi i'm READY to write a thesis about murderbot i am having way too much fun with this #i created a pretty excel spreadsheet and everything #i don't know why i did this but now i can look at them while i think about this more! so i figured i'd share them haha #i didn't count uses of 'friendly' but special shoutout to when MB is all alone in its cold cubicle missing 20% of its body mass #and starts putting on a show because 'the friendly noise would keep it company' 😭😭#i feel sick thinking about murderbot all alone on its own not knowing what its like to have friends watching media for 'the friendly noise'#also YES okay i wanted to make a point about miki there but i just #couldn't bring myself to talk about that more so... yeah #also uhhh this data is very subjective #i didn't count particularly ironic uses of 'friend' and generally did not count every instance of friend and sometimes it was a hard call #also i probably shouldn't have counted the times murderbot refered to drones or secsystems as its friends (often after hacking them)#but murderbot does seem to care about them and shows kindness and respect and sometimes points out that a system is friendly #so while i don't think MB means “friend” in the same way referring to them as when it refers to ART for instance #i still think its CUTE and also kinda funny how many times that happened so i decided to keep those!!!#but yeah take my data with a grain of salt lol

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